Temple,

Rach, maybe you're right....maybe they don't love themselves.

I often wonder how they seem to love others. All my life I've been building my own family, some of those people are still part of my life. I guess I always missed the day-to-day of it, the holidays, birthdays, everything like that. If I could only get everyone together in the same city. Move to San Diego! You are part of my family as well, my baby sis....

Frankenkitty, yes, I imagine there will be dirt under my fingernails...

....for some time. A small reminder. Sometimes still a necessity. I fall in sometimes, old familiar, but it doesn't seem to be as ugly or as deep. Long road, that one.

I'm so sorry about your grandmother, and your dad...I just feel for you. I keep saying that. I understand reclusive, I do that, too. Sometimes out of just pure need for survival....too many details, I have to retreat, regroup. Sometimes, to curl up and just be. Don't be hard on yourself. Get through it however you have to.

Spiffy, it's so much easier to understand a disease or injury we can see.

After being diagnosed with the brain injury, after we discovered it really, my Dad (Jay) has had a really hard time with it. My whole family has. I asked Jay one day, so, if you could see blood on my skull, or if it made me walk with a cane or something, or something external, would you believe me then...would it be easier then to understand how I lost everything then? He admitted that, yes, it would. It'd be better even still if we would take someone's word for what they are feeling, especially when backed by doctors, and not judge.

thanks Jimmy...

Hacker, it is indeed possible to oversimplify, that's for sure.

I think we all do that, too, and sometimes it can take away from the suffering of the person... the validation of what they are experiencing. I always want to understand everything, look everything up, study it. Especially when it pertains to me, but sometimes that leaves me too open to suggestion from well meaning doctors. I think all these "criteria" can be a scary thing. You are absolutely right, you are a person. Understand the illness, but YOUR illness. You'll switch doctors and meds, and ultimately, it's you who knows you best. When you feel the instinct to contest? Please DO IT. It is different for everyone, so we have to all do our own homework and be our own best advocate. :)

Awesome post...

Unfortunately, I think we have been born to families who cannot love us because they don't truly love themselves, but here, it seems you have begun to form your own family. A family of friends that wants to be present, wants to love you, and intends to fulfill those needs. Fill those voids. Sometimes if we don't have the family we need, we have to build it. And sometimes, that's better than the "real" thing...

You my dear, are an important piece of the family I am learning to build for myself. My soul sister, the person that seems to "get it", the withholding of judgement...

It is inspiring to see someone climb

out of the pits. I know the nailbreaking, clawing, holding on when you're thinking it wouldn't be so hard to let go. But you held on, you climbed out, and Hacker can see that. It is inspiring. :) I'm sorry I didn't call, my grandma had a heartattack Saturday. I had to tell my dad today, it was awful. I've been reclusive. It's hard. Take care Temple, and thank you for being there :)

Temple,

Great, honest post here. Brave, too. Hmmm, I can relate a smidge. hehe But seriously, I'm glad you mentioned the over lableing and medication comments cause I do think many are over medicated and misdiagnosed. Many mentally and emotionally "normal" people looking in at us fail to realize that mental illness is physcial illness just the same as diabetes or M.S. is. Because the symptoms being viewed are of emotions and/or strange behavior, many others see it as someone just being "nuts." Which, yeah, we are, () but not cause we choose to be and most of us don't use it as an excuse or a crutch. I just wish more people would understand those things. Great post, my friend.

Glad you posted this baby...

Good morning Temple

Could it be simpler than it’s made out to be? I think it depends on the situation, but certainly it could be. That’s the tough part about all of this; every single situation is so entirely different. Some people with schizophrenia can’t live without help, some get by with moderate help and some manage almost totally on their own. The symptoms vary so widely. Not only is how the disease effects you chaotic, the disease itself is. And then there are people in situations like yours, with symptoms so similar, yet the cause is so different. Trying to understand the causes might not be the right path for you and me, but rather learning to understand our individual symptoms. If we can do without the labels and stigmas long enough to take a look not at what has happened to us, but rather who we’ve become now, it might just help to make things better. In my case, I shouldn’t view myself as a schizophrenic; I’m a person who experiences hallucinations and delusions along with occasional alogia and incoherence. Rather than trying to understand schizophrenia, I should be trying to understand those individual symptoms. Not what causes them, but what they are and how I’m going to deal with them.